The Art Institute of Chicago

Prints and DrawingsSource: The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 3, Annual Report 1958-1959 (Oct.,1959), pp. 10-12Published by: The Art Institute of ChicagoStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4119680 .

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continues to present the Department of Decorative Arts with pieces unique in quality and historical im- portance. Their recent gift is an American silver coffee pot by Brasher. Two important paintings, both from the Cubist period, are welcome additions to the museum's famous survey of modern painting. One is the Portrait of Picasso by Juan Gris, the gift of Mr. Leigh B. Block; the other is the Woman with Fan, painted in 1913 by Jean Metzinger, the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Sigmund W. Kunstadter.

If this has been a year of achievement, it has also been a year of transition; a year in which we have

been saddened to see some members of the staff succumb to the offer of better positions in other museums, but it has also been a year in which we have been pleased to add staff members to our grow- ing ranks. That during this period so much has been accomplished is due to the efforts of many staff members, too numerous to mention individually. To each and every one of them, I would wish to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude for all the help that they have given me during this past year and for their service to the Art Institute.

ALLAN MCNAB, Director of Administration

PAINTING AND SCULPTURE

Among the important accessions were three paintings by the Chicago painter, Ivan Le Lorraine Albright: Heavy the Oar to Him Who is Tired, Heavy the Coat, Heavy the Sea, the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Earle Ludgin; Portrait of Mary L. Block, 1957, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Leigh B. Block; and That Which I Should Have Done, I Did Not Do, 1931- 1941. Other additions to the collections were: Linear Construction, No. 4, 1958-1959, aluminum and stainless steel sculpture by Naum Gabo, the gift of Mrs. Suzette Morton Zurcher. Portrait of Picasso, oil, by Juan Gris, gift of Mr. Leigh B. Block. Woman with Fan, 1913, oil, by Jean Metzinger, the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Sigmund W. Kunstadter. Still Life, 1905, oil on panel, by Edouard Vuillard, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Sterling Morton. Champs de Mars, The Red Tower, 1911, oil, by Robert Delaunay, purchased for The Joseph Winterbotham Collection. Portrait of a Bishop, oil, by Bernardo Strozzi, pur- chased from the Alexander A. McKay Fund Income.

The great loan exhibition of the work of Paul Gauguin was held from February 12 through March 29. In November and December of last year, The Artist Looks at People gave our visitors a fascinating excursion through the collections. The 62nd Annual Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity, held from May 13 to July 6, was the first exhibit to be shown in the newly-constructed Gunsaulus Hall. Movable partitions afford complete flexibility in this new gallery, and the lighting can be arranged in any desired manner to produce the most effective results. The 62nd Chicago exhibition was selected by a jury of three: Mrs. Adelyn Breeskin, Director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Lawrence Calcagno,

painter, and Seymour Lipton, sculptor. Prizes amount- ing to $7,650 were distributed to twenty-two artists.

From the 19th Annual Exhibition of the Society for Contemporary American Art, the collections ac- quired a rich, somber-toned oil, The Rite, by Philip Guston, given in memory of Beulah Zachary. The Society, through its perceptive interests and its in- creasingly comprehensive exhibitions, continues to enrich the museum's collection of contemporary art.

Conservation of the collections has benefited from the installation of equipment and studio on the third floor of the Ferguson Memorial Building. During the year, 100 paintings entered the studio for examina- tion and treatment. Four paintings were x-rayed, ten paintings were cleaned, and 19 given a superficial cleaning. Three paintings were relined and repairs and cleaning treatments were performed on four pieces of sculpture.

PRINTS AND DRA WINGS

Three of the notable drawings that entered the collec- tion during the past year have been discussed and reproduced in the Qiarterly of April, 1959: Three Gypsies, by Jacques de Gheyn, gift of Tiffany and Margaret Blake; Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek (Carl O. Schniewind Memorial Fund); and Goya's Dancing Girl (Cuydado con ese paso), presented by the Joseph and Helen Reg- enstein Foundation. Others include the portrait draw- ing Cardinal de la Rochefoucault, by Daniel Dumonstier, French portraitist of the early 17th century; the Head of the Painter Sylvestre, a study for a pastel by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, the brilliant and profound French portrait painter of the 18th century; and a superb wash drawing from the master's mature period, The Death of Seneca, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. These three drawings were gifts of the Joseph and Helen Regenstein Foundation. Another 18th cen-

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Juan Gris. Portrait of Picasso, oil. Gift of Leigh B. Block

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tury Italian draftsman of the first rank, thus far not represented in our collection of drawings, is Giovanni Battista Piranesi. His vivacious sheet of Figure Studies is the gift of Mrs. Tiffany Blake. Through the Wor- cester Sketch Fund, an important drawing by Tou- louse-Lautrec has been acquired, The Cortege of the Rajah.

The prestige of the Art Institute's print collection was further enhanced by the acquisition of a great 15th century engraving, The Road to Calvary, by the Housebook Master (see the Quarterly, Dec., 1958). Welcome additions to our collection of Dutch art be- fore Rembrandt are two charming and fantastic land- scapes by Willem Buytewech, the gift of Mrs. C. Phillip Miller. Manet's masterpiece in lithography, The Races (Les Courses), was acquired in a splendid im- pression of the first state (Buckingham Fund), and Elsa La Viennoise, one of Toulouse-Lautrec's rarest color lithographs, was given in memory of Carter H. Harrison by a group of his friends. The memory of Mrs. Potter Palmer was honored by her family with the gift of Degas' charming soft ground Portrait of his Brother, Rene, one of four known impressions. Of the many other prints added to the collection, too numer- ous to be listed here, some were the gifts of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph R. Shapiro, Mr. and Mrs. Frank B. Hubachek, Mr. and Mrs. Morton G. Neumann, and others.

The exhibition in April, Dutch Drawings--Master- pieces from Five Centuries, assembled by the Rijksmu- seum, Amsterdam, and circulated by the Smithsonian Institution, was attended by 14,750 visitors. The staff of the department was also deeply involved with the preparation of the Gauguin exhibition, to which the Art Institute contributed most of the graphic work. For the exhibition French Drawings from American Col- lections, held in Rotterdam, Paris, and New York, the department lent fourteen of its finest drawings.

Harold Joachim assumed the duties of Curator of Prints and Drawings on September 1, 1958. Hugh Edwards, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings, was also appointed Curator of Photography, the col- lection of which is now in the care of the Department of Prints and Drawings.

THE ORIENTAL DEPARTMENT

The opening of the Oriental collections in newly de- signed space near the front of the main building was held on October 17. The remodeled area contains ten exhibition galleries on the main floor and enlarged storage and study room facilities on a mezzanine level. Named galleries include the Chauncey McCor- mick Gallery, the Russell Tyson Gallery, and three Buckingham galleries. Of the latter, one contains the Lucy Maud Buckingham Collection of Chinese Bronzes; a second, the Clarence Buckingham Collec- tion of Japanese Prints; and the third, honoring the

memory of Miss Kate S. Buckingham, contains Chinese and Japanese paintings, many purchased with funds provided by Miss Buckingham. All of the galleries are equipped with advanced lighting tech- niques, a new selection of colors and fabrics to set off and enhance the individual objects, and newly de- signed cases. The flexibility of the space permits fre- quent rotation of exhibits.

Additions were made to the permanent collection in nearly all phases of Far Eastern art, but it was the field of Japanese art that was most strengthened through gift and purchase. A pair of landscape screens by the Japanese master, Sesshti (1420-1506), were purchased for the Kate S. Buckingham Collection. The Joseph and Helen Regenstein Foundation pre- sented a wood and lacquer sculpture of the guardian, Fudo, and the masterfully painted Landscape of the Four Seasons screens by Sesson (1504-1589). A screen in the Ukiyo-e manner by an unknown artist, Merri- ments in the Bathhouse, was the gift of Robert Allerton, while Russell Tyson presented a fourth screen, Pine Trees at Lakeside, by the eighteenth century Japanese painter, Taiga. Mr. and Mrs. James A. Michener presented an important group of Japanese woodblock prints.

Two series of lectures on the arts of the Far East were given by the Curator and Associate Curator in cooperation with The University of Chicago. In addi- tion, individual lectures on specific aspects of Oriental art, as well as gallery tours, were provided for the Members, clubs, and Associates groups.

DECORATIVE AR TS

Among the new accessions were a Meissen plat de menage of 1737 (see the Quarterly, April, 1959); a French silver tureen by Dapcher, 1772; and the im- portant gift made by The Antiquarian Society: an American silver coffee pot with three taps, by Ephraim Brasher, New York, about 1770. Mr. and Mrs. A. Watson Armour III gave an outstanding group of furniture, including a seventeenth century cabinet and an eighteenth century English commode. Twelve wax portraits given by Mrs. Alfred E. Hamill enrich her earlier gift of a group of waxes.

Special exhibitions included Swedish Textiles Today, and Josiah Wedgwood's Heads of Illustrious Moderns. For the latter, a fully annotated catalogue was prepared by Vivian Scheidemantel, Assistant Curator of Dec- orative Arts.

The Herbert Pickering Lewis Collection of Mexican Pottery was installed in Hutchinson Gallery. In addi- tion, the old English shop front was restored to its original function as part of the display, and a number of English lead garden figures, pictures and tapestries complete the ensemble. A beginning was made in arranging a sequence of rooms which will eventually lead the visitor through various periods of styles from

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